Moscow Fashion Week opens in a whirl of runways, regional talent and new voices

By Waqas Habib Rana 

MOSCOW — By the time Moscow Fashion Week opened its doors at the Manege on September 26, there was little sense of a gentle beginning. Three runway halls were already gearing up for a day of near-continuous activity, with models, designers and guests moving between presentations at a pace that left little room for pause.

The opening day ran for almost ten hours, turning the Manege into a tightly choreographed fashion circuit. Shows began in the afternoon and followed one another at intervals of roughly 30 minutes, with the final bows in one hall often coinciding with guests making their way into another.

The first names on the runway came from the next generation of designers. A joint presentation by Universal University and the British Higher School of Art and Design opened the programme, followed by the Academy of Branding and Design “Metrics”.

Their presence set an important tone for the opening day: alongside established labels, Moscow Fashion Week was giving considerable space to students, debut designers and emerging voices.

That emphasis was reflected in the numbers behind the event. Organisers said they had received 1,047 applications from 63 Russian regions for this season’s programme, with almost half submitted by debut brands. Among the first-time applicants were designers from places as geographically dispersed as Alushta, Veliky Ustyug, Iskitim and Abakan.

The runway then widened its geographic lens.

At 2:30 PM, Chelyabinsk designer Tatiana Kotova took the stage, bringing regional fashion into the centre of the opening-day programme. At 4:30 PM, the spotlight moved to St. Petersburg and designer Stas Lopatkin. Hours later, at 8:00 PM, Inniki represented Yakutia, before St. Petersburg designer Ianis Chamalidy brought the day’s runway schedule to a close at 9:00 PM.

Between those regional showcases, Moscow labels including ММÉ, Surovaya, Atelier Duo and Atelier Irina Vorobyeva added their own interpretations to an increasingly varied runway.

The result was a programme that moved rapidly between generations and geographies: students followed by professional labels, Moscow alongside Chelyabinsk and St. Petersburg, and the Russian fashion map stretching all the way to Yakutia.

The activity at the Manege did not stop when the models left the runway. Down on Level -2, a Pop-Up Shop gathered clothing, footwear and accessories from nearly 100 Russian brands. Guests could move through the retail space between shows, turning the venue into something closer to a temporary fashion district than a conventional runway venue.

The opening day also brought the Moscow Fashion Week Lecture Series into the programme. Speakers from the fashion industry, business and leading design institutions addressed subjects ranging from education and technology to the changing routes into fashion careers.

For visitors moving through the Manege on September 26, the effect was less of a single opening ceremony than a continuous succession of encounters—with student work, regional designers, established labels, industry discussions and Russian brands displayed for sale under the same roof.

And that, perhaps, was the defining image of the opening day: fashion arriving at the Manege from different corners of Russia and different stages of a designer’s career, all moving through the same tightly packed schedule.

Moscow Fashion Week had begun not with a single statement, but with a crowded, rapidly changing runway, and a distinctly broad cast of voices.